"Microsoft recently extended 'It Just Works' compatibility for Visual Basic 6 applications through the full lifetime of Windows 8. Visual Basic 6 first shipped in 1998, so its apps will have at least 24 years of supported lifetime. Contrast that with the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.0 (2002), which is incompatible with Windows 7 (2009)."

I've played around with Visual Basic and Gambas. Though they're not usually my languages of choice I can see the appeal. It's amazingly quick and easy to make small, GUI applications with them. I probably wouldn't want to do anything complex in VB, but for small applications where you want to do one thing and don't want to waste any time putting it together VB is a good tool.

I suspect VB gets a bad reputation for the same reason JavaScript does. There is a low entry point and it means a lot of inexperienced programmers are pumping out garbage. But in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, both languages make useful tools.